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Author: Lily E. Kay
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804734172
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476
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Book Description
This is a detailed history of one of the most important and dramatic episodes in modern science, recounted from the novel vantage point of the dawn of the information age and its impact on representations of nature, heredity, and society. Drawing on archives, published sources, and interviews, the author situates work on the genetic code (1953-70) within the history of life science, the rise of communication technosciences (cybernetics, information theory, and computers), the intersection of molecular biology with cryptanalysis and linguistics, and the social history of postwar Europe and the United States. Kay draws out the historical specificity in the process by which the central biological problem of DNA-based protein synthesis came to be metaphorically represented as an information code and a writing technologyand consequently as a book of life. This molecular writing and reading is part of the cultural production of the Nuclear Age, its power amplified by the centuries-old theistic resonance of the book of life metaphor. Yet, as the author points out, these are just metaphors: analogies, not ontologies. Necessary and productive as they have been, they have their epistemological limitations. Deploying analyses of language, cryptology, and information theory, the author persuasively argues that, technically speaking, the genetic code is not a code, DNA is not a language, and the genome is not an information system (objections voiced by experts as early as the 1950s). Thus her historical reconstruction and analyses also serve as a critique of the new genomic biopower. Genomic textuality has become a fact of life, a metaphor literalized, she claims, as human genome projects promise new levels of control over life through the meta-level of information: control of the word (the DNA sequences) and its editing and rewriting. But the author shows how the humbling limits of these scriptural metaphors also pose a challenge to the textual and material mastery of the genomic book of life.
Author: Lily E. Kay
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804734172
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476
Get Book Here
Book Description
This is a detailed history of one of the most important and dramatic episodes in modern science, recounted from the novel vantage point of the dawn of the information age and its impact on representations of nature, heredity, and society. Drawing on archives, published sources, and interviews, the author situates work on the genetic code (1953-70) within the history of life science, the rise of communication technosciences (cybernetics, information theory, and computers), the intersection of molecular biology with cryptanalysis and linguistics, and the social history of postwar Europe and the United States. Kay draws out the historical specificity in the process by which the central biological problem of DNA-based protein synthesis came to be metaphorically represented as an information code and a writing technologyand consequently as a book of life. This molecular writing and reading is part of the cultural production of the Nuclear Age, its power amplified by the centuries-old theistic resonance of the book of life metaphor. Yet, as the author points out, these are just metaphors: analogies, not ontologies. Necessary and productive as they have been, they have their epistemological limitations. Deploying analyses of language, cryptology, and information theory, the author persuasively argues that, technically speaking, the genetic code is not a code, DNA is not a language, and the genome is not an information system (objections voiced by experts as early as the 1950s). Thus her historical reconstruction and analyses also serve as a critique of the new genomic biopower. Genomic textuality has become a fact of life, a metaphor literalized, she claims, as human genome projects promise new levels of control over life through the meta-level of information: control of the word (the DNA sequences) and its editing and rewriting. But the author shows how the humbling limits of these scriptural metaphors also pose a challenge to the textual and material mastery of the genomic book of life.
Author: Julianne Zedalis
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781947172401
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 1923
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Book Description
Biology for AP® courses covers the scope and sequence requirements of a typical two-semester Advanced Placement® biology course. The text provides comprehensive coverage of foundational research and core biology concepts through an evolutionary lens. Biology for AP® Courses was designed to meet and exceed the requirements of the College Board’s AP® Biology framework while allowing significant flexibility for instructors. Each section of the book includes an introduction based on the AP® curriculum and includes rich features that engage students in scientific practice and AP® test preparation; it also highlights careers and research opportunities in biological sciences.
Author: Matthew Cobb
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0465062660
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 464
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Book Description
Everyone has heard of the story of DNA as the story of Watson and Crick and Rosalind Franklin, but knowing the structure of DNA was only a part of a greater struggle to understand life's secrets. Life's Greatest Secret is the story of the discovery and cracking of the genetic code, the thing that ultimately enables a spiraling molecule to give rise to the life that exists all around us. This great scientific breakthrough has had farreaching consequences for how we understand ourselves and our place in the natural world, and for how we might take control of our (and life's) future. Life's Greatest Secret mixes remarkable insights, theoretical dead-ends, and ingenious experiments with the swift pace of a thriller. From New York to Paris, Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Cambridge, England, and London to Moscow, the greatest discovery of twentieth-century biology was truly a global feat. Biologist and historian of science Matthew Cobb gives the full and rich account of the cooperation and competition between the eccentric characters -- mathematicians, physicists, information theorists, and biologists -- who contributed to this revolutionary new science. And, while every new discovery was a leap forward for science, Cobb shows how every new answer inevitably led to new questions that were at least as difficult to answer: just ask anyone who had hoped that the successful completion of the Human Genome Project was going to truly yield the book of life, or that a better understanding of epigenetics or "junk DNA" was going to be the final piece of the puzzle. But the setbacks and unexpected discoveries are what make the science exciting, and it is Matthew Cobb's telling that makes them worth reading. This is a riveting story of humans exploring what it is that makes us human and how the world works, and it is essential reading for anyone who'd like to explore those questions for themselves.
Author: Nediljko Budisa
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 3527607099
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312
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Book Description
The ability to introduce non-canonical amino acids in vivo has greatly expanded the repertoire of accessible proteins for basic research and biotechnological application. Here, the different methods and strategies to incorporate new or modified amino acids are explained in detail, including a lot of practical advice for first-time users of this powerful technique. Novel applications in protein biochemistry, genomics, biotechnology and biomedicine made possible by the expansion of the genetic code are discussed and numerous examples are given. Essential reading for all molecular life scientists who want to stay ahead in their research.
Author: Shōzō Ōsawa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
The genetic code was deciphered experimentally around 1966 and for a number of years scientists considered it to be "universal" for all forms of life. In 1981 researchers shocked the scientific community with the discovery that the code differed in mitochondria and certain other organisms, evidence that the genetic code was still evolving. This book discusses the distribution and origin of the non-universal codes and examines the possible mechanisms of code changes, making it essential reading for all those interested in evolutionary genetics.
Author: Eric Wong
Publisher: Axolotl Academic Publishing
ISBN: 0985226110
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
"Yet another cell and molecular biology book? At the very least, you would think that if I was going to write a textbook, I should write one in an area that really needs one instead of a subject that already has multiple excellent and definitive books. So, why write this book, then? First, it's a course that I have enjoyed teaching for many years, so I am very familiar with what a student really needs to take away from this class within the time constraints of a semester. Second, because it is a course that many students take, there is a greater opportunity to make an impact on more students' pocketbooks than if I were to start off writing a book for a highly specialized upper- level course. And finally, it was fun to research and write, and can be revised easily for inclusion as part of our next textbook, High School Biology."--Open Textbook Library.
Author: Lluis Ribas de Pouplana
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387268871
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
Early Thoughts on RNA and the Origin of Life The full impact of the essential role of the nucleic acids in biological systems was forcefully demonstrated by the research community in the 1950s. Although Avery and his collaborators had identified DNA as the genetic material responsible for the transformation of bacteria in 1944, it was not until the early 1950s that the Hershey-Chase experiments provided a more direct demonstration of this role. Finally, the structural DNA double helix proposed by Watson and Crick in 1953 clearly created a structural frame work for the role of DNA as both information carrier and as a molecule that could undergo the necessary replication needed for daughter cells. Research continued by Kornberg and his colleagues in the mid-1950s emphasized the biochemistry and enzymology of DNA replication. At the same time, there was a growing interest in the role of RNA. The 1956 dis covery by David Davies and myself showed that polyadenylic acid and polyuridylic acid could form a double-helical RNA molecule but that it differed somewhat from DN A A large number of experiments were subsequendy carried out with synthetic polyribonucleotides which illustrated that RNA could form even more complicated helical structures in which the specificity of hydrogen bonding was the key element in determining the molecular conformation. Finally, in I960,1 could show that it was possible to make a hybrid helix.
Author: Matt Ridley
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062200666
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
Francis Crick—the quiet genius who led a revolution in biology by discovering, quite literally, the secret of life—will be bracketed with Galileo, Darwin, and Einstein as one of the greatest scientists of all time. In his fascinating biography of the scientific pioneer who uncovered the genetic code—the digital cipher at the heart of heredity that distinguishes living from non-living things—acclaimed bestselling science writer Matt Ridley traces Crick's life from middle-class mediocrity in the English Midlands through a lackluster education and six years designing magnetic mines for the Royal Navy to his leap into biology at the age of thirty-one and its astonishing consequences. In the process, Ridley sheds a brilliant light on the man who forever changed our world and how we understand it.
Author: Koji Tamura
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3038427691
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203
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Book Description
This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "The Origin and Evolution of the Genetic Code: 100th Anniversary Year of the Birth of Francis Crick" that was published in Life
Author: John F. Atkins
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387893822
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 473
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Book Description
The literature on recoding is scattered, so this superb book ?lls a need by prov- ing up-to-date, comprehensive, authoritative reviews of the many kinds of recoding phenomena. Between 1961 and 1966 my colleagues and I deciphered the genetic code in Escherichia coli and showed that the genetic code is the same in E. coli, Xenopus laevis, and guinea pig tissues. These results showed that the code has been c- served during evolution and strongly suggested that the code appeared very early during biological evolution, that all forms of life on earth descended from a c- mon ancestor, and thus that all forms of life on this planet are related to one another. The problem of biological time was solved by encoding information in DNA and retrieving the information for each new generation, for it is easier to make a new organism than it is to repair an aging, malfunctioning one. Subsequently, small modi?cations of the standard genetic code were found in certain organisms and in mitochondria. Mitochondrial DNA only encodes about 10–13 proteins, so some modi?cations of the genetic code are tolerated that pr- ably would be lethal if applied to the thousands of kinds of proteins encoded by genomic DNA.
